OLYMPIA, Wash. – The state Supreme Court has ruled that the Ferndale School District should be included in a lawsuit over the death of a Windward High School student in 2015.
Gabriel Anderson was walking with his PE class along West Smith Road when William Klein fell asleep at the wheel and veered off the roadway, killing Gabriel and another student and badly injuring two others.
Gabriel’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit but a court in Whatcom County dismissed their claims against the school district.
The state’s high court agrees with an appeals court ruling that found the district’s own rules for taking students off campus weren’t followed and it could be held liable.
It sends the suit back to Whatcom Superior Court to be considered by a jury.
Klein was acquitted of all criminal charges in the accident but is also named in the wrongful death lawsuit.